The screw is turning: depending which way you look at it, the US ruling class is beginning to take fright, or the Democrats are beginning to grow some chutzpah. The first ever bill to design a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq was introduced into the House of Representatives yesterday - and voted down by 300 votes to 128.

That 128 is far higher than it would have been eight months ago when Kerry was campaigning on a 'bigger, better occupation' policy. In the vote, two thirds of the Democrats present voted for the bill, in the form of an amendment to the near $500bn Pentagon budget, and five Republicans joined them. One of the Republicans who voted for it, and the only one who spoke for it on the floor, a Walter Jones of North Carolina (hick), had previously been behind the campaign to change the name of French fries to freedom fries. So, why has he gone all limp-wristed and Gallic?

Well, one reason could be that, despite delusions that the demonstration elections would result in the Iraqi resistance turning into a nerdish, cultish hobby for a few remaining stragglers, the fact is that there has been little sign of the battle abating - whether in terms of the civilian resistance or the armed resistance. The war is not, contrary to expectation and hype, winding down.

Despite the metaphors preferred by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz about Iraq being like a kid learning to ride a bike (the imperialist cliches never change), they seem curiously reluctant to allow the vehicle to slip out of their fingers and ride off into the desert sunset. The US is presently constructing four giant new bases in Iraq , which doesn't look like preparation for a slow withdrawal and a warm wave to a nation firmly on its bike. Indeed, reports describe how the US is seeking to "re-assert itself" in Iraqi affairs, as if it had been taking a back seat since the elections. In particular, America has its "red lines" that Iraqi officials dare not cross, because "we have 140,000 troops here, and they are getting shot at". Further, the US has been measuring up the Iraqi troops they've been training and, although we often hear nice round figures indicating that a total of 140,000 Iraqi troops and police have been trained, they have found that of the 81 Iraqi army battalions assessed, only 3 were able to conduct operations independently. The Iraqi troops either cannot or will not fight against the resistance.

The war against the resistance is not being won, and the reintroduction of the death penalty by the puppet government is unlikely to do anything other than add legal corpses to illegal ones. In large part, this is because the occupation is much dirtier, much more oppressive, than we are given to understand by the great wall of silence on the television news, where only the latest explosion merits discussion, and then only for ten seconds before moving onto the latest scandal about hoodies and faulty NHS operations.

This excellent article on the "psychodynamics of occupation" provides some chilling glimpses at the inner state of many US soldiers, and how this affects the way they react to Iraqis. Hence: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him." The apocalyptic language easily matches anything bin Laden might come up with, and the civilian death toll from the November destruction of that city, is now estimated to be as high as 1,300 . Or, if you don't like that, try the anonymous note left on a mirror in one destroyed home: "Fuck Iraq and every Iraqi in it!" If only they could get them into Abu Ghraib, they might just succeed in doing that. Or, how about this message to the kids: "The one thing you learn over here is that there are no innocent civilians, except the kids. And even them -- the ones that are all, 'Hey mister, mister, chocolate?' -- I'll be killing them someday." Suge Knight has nothing on this guy. Or better still: "There are things I have to do out here that I can't explain to my chain of command, and that the American people would never understand." Read the article, and check those copious references to see what sort of things this US army Sergeant is talking about.

No wonder that, according to Dahr Jamail, most Iraqis refer to the resistance as "patriots". The ungrateful Iraqis, unlike the ungrateful Bosnians , are causing enough havoc for the US that withdrawal is a mainstream proposition not only for most Americans, but for much of the governing class as well.